


The World Behind and Home Ahead

by tepidspongebath



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Established Relationship, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Parentlock, past Sherlock/Irene
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-11-22
Updated: 2015-11-16
Packaged: 2018-01-02 07:50:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,252
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1054302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tepidspongebath/pseuds/tepidspongebath
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“She did go with Hamish,” he said simply.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Sorry, who went with what?”</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>“Hamish.” Sherlock said it carefully, as though he was tasting the name, and then he blinked and swallowed as though it had gone funny on its way down. “Irene Adler. Apparently she remembered your gibe about baby names and took it to heart.”</i>
</p>
<p>Hamish Holmes is very much Sherlock's son. John Watson is determined to make the best of it or die trying.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Friday Night Arrives Without a Suitcase

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Threeh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threeh/gifts).



> Who asked for parentlock for [Fics for the Philippines](http://jamesphillimoresumbrella.tumblr.com/post/66967215712/hello-my-name-is-tessa-i-write-in-the-sherlock). Thank you so much for donating, and, while the parent aspect doesn't quite kick in yet in this chapter (it will come, trust me!), I do hope you like it! I tried to figure out where Hamish would come from, and wanted to explore the idea of Sherlock being unexpectedly good at parenting (better at it than John anyway), and I will do my darndest not to botch things up too much. 
> 
> The title is from a song that Frodo sings while they're walking through the Shire in _The Fellowship of the Ring_ \- it felt appropriate - while the title of the first chapter is a line from [_Lady Madonna_](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfthrizXKOM), for the slightly more shallow reason of it being a large part of the background noise while I was writing. 
> 
> This is my first attempt at parentlock, so please be kind, but do feel free to point out where I go wrong. It's not my area of expertise, so to speak, and I will gladly welcome corrections and suggestions. Thank you!
> 
> **UPDATE** : Seeing as I've been unable to carry with this as a post-TRF fic, I've changed a few details to take Series 3 into account!

Seven months after he moved back to Baker Street, John Watson was in the kitchen, listening for signs of life. He was also cooking minestrone, because you can only live on takeaway dinners for so long and that was what he could manage with the edible things in the store cupboard, and he was making enough for four people, because he knew for a fact that Sherlock had had nothing but a chocolate biscuit since Wednesday night and he was bound to be ravenous once his body caught up with him. But every now and then he would put down the ladle, and listen.

Part of it, he knew, was him being silly. It was as though there was a sliver of him that half-believed that Sherlock would vanish into the ether if he didn’t pay enough attention, despite the weight and reality of the man and the various tells he left around the flat. The silk shirts in the laundry, the new chemistry set on the kitchen table, the curly hairs (dark again, now that that appalling red dye had washed off) he could never be persuaded to clear away from the shower drain, and the well-used Bowie knife pinning this month’s bills to the mantelpiece were all proof either that Sherlock Holmes had indeed returned and was here to stay, or that John had gone so far round the twist that he was beyond the help of any sort institution, so just let him carry on and be happy, thank you very much.

More rationally, though, John was listening because he hadn’t heard anything from Sherlock since he’d turned on his laptop, and that had been all of 45 minutes ago, while John was still clearing away the more hazardous experiments to make the kitchen suitable for food preparation. There had been a few keystrokes (that would be the password), and maybe a few swipes at the touchpad (that was a guess rather than something John had actually heard over the rattling of tins and the clatter of uncooked pasta), and, after that, nothing.

It was not that silence was unusual for Sherlock: he hadn’t been lying when he’d told John that he sometimes didn’t speak for days on end, and he could move like a cat when he wanted to. No, it was the quality of it that was sitting uncomfortably against John’s skin. He knew Sherlock’s silences, some of them intimately, and they ranged from the comfortable to the mildly irritating to the flat-out infuriating, all of them achingly familiar, even the darker ones Sherlock had brought home with him after what John still thought of as the Fall, and after the six months he’d still had to spend in Eastern Europe, despite Mycroft’s very best efforts. This, though – this was new. It felt stretched and brittle, as if the air would shatter if he so much as turned away from the stove.

It was worrying.

John gave the minestrone a final stir, put the lid on the pot, turned off the heat, and peeked around the door of the kitchen. “Sherlock?”

The world’s only consulting detective was sitting at the desk with his laptop in front of him, elbows on the table, hands clasped, and lips pressed against his knuckles. He had not lost his predilection for expensive suits and shirts that seemed to be perpetually in danger of popping a button, though some of the brands were now unfamiliar, and the textures and sleek lines emphasized the odd tightness of his shoulders. His eyes were open, but whether he was actually seeing the bullet holes in the wall was anybody’s guess.

John took a few steps into the room. “Sherlock, are you all right?”

He gave himself a small, nearly imperceptible shake: it was all in the slight movement of the lapels of his jacket and the tiny bob of the curl just over his right ear. You would have missed it if you weren’t watching, and John was watching very carefully indeed. “She did go with Hamish,” he said simply.

“Sorry, who went with what?”

“Hamish.” Sherlock said it carefully, as though he was tasting the name, and then he blinked and swallowed as though it had gone funny on its way down. “Irene Adler. Apparently she remembered your gibe about baby names and took it to heart.”

“Irene Ad-”

“No, she didn’t die in Karachi. Mycroft can be fooled, but it’s not wise to do it too often otherwise he’ll start to notice. Yes, I had a hand in it. Yes, I saw her a handful of times while I was…away.” ‘Away’ was how he referred to the three years he’d spent rather less dead than the world had been led to believe. He’d told John about it, of course, but every now and then an odd detail would surface – things that Sherlock had deleted or thought inconsequential, or, very rarely, conscious omissions – and the doctor would be left reeling with the sudden need to rearrange his world view. Such as now.  

 “Yes, we had sex,” Sherlock went on, and it was a simple, unapologetic statement of fact. “Unprotected, obviously, though this is the first I’ve heard of the consequences. Hamish Holmes.” He said it briskly, and then he licked his lips, blinked hard, twice. And before John could register the fact and come up with a response that didn’t involve him melting at the knees, Sherlock snapped his computer shut, and sprang out of his seat, pocketing his phone as he went. “Come on, Dimmock’s finally asked for help with the Presbury case. I’ve been waiting for this since last week.”

“Don’t you want to – I think you should---”

“No. We can eat later. I’m not hungry, and your minestrone will keep till we get back. It’s always better after it sits for a while – you tend to leave the ditalini undercooked. ”

And that was as clear a sign as any that Sherlock Did Not Want To Talk About It, and that, even if he applied thumbscrews, his flatmate (his boyfriend) was not about to get anything more than that until he felt like it. John followed him out the door, shrugging on his jacket, giddy and so lightheaded that he was almost convinced his head would float away, given a strong enough wind. God knew what Sherlock was feeling.


	2. Sunday Morning Creeping Like a Nun

Three years after Sherlock’s return from the dead; eleven months after John’s marriage had come to a sudden, definitive end; ten months and three weeks after John stopped being angry (and he hadn’t known that it was possible to be that angry at any one person) and started properly talking to Sherlock again; ten months and four days after their first kiss; ten months, three days and twenty-three and a half hours after they finally, finally tumbled into bed (with John laughing that he didn’t know how half of it was supposed to go, but that hadn’t mattered in the end); two days after Sherlock had broken all the news about Irene Adler; half an hour after they had Joseph Presbury practically gift-wrapped for the court case; and twelve minutes after John had forced a large bowl of leftover minestrone on the lanky consulting detective, Sherlock pinned him with a worrying look over a last steaming spoonful of broth.

“You have questions,” he said.

John huffed and dropped his own spoon back into his empty bowl. He’d been dreading this. “Okay, I don’t get how you figured out the bit with the chessboard –”

Sherlock shook his head impatiently. “You know that isn’t what I meant. Though it was the coffee stains and the black rook if you really want to know.” He moved the spoon the rest of the way to his mouth, chewed, swallowed. John knew delaying tactics when he saw them, and he would have been glad that he wasn’t the only uncomfortable person in the room if he hadn’t still been reeling from the bomb Sherlock had dropped the other night (very quietly and unobtrusively reeling, but reeling nonetheless).

“I suppose I should start with Irene Adler,” he said at last.

“You don’t have to,” said John, a little too quickly.

“You’re trying to be nice. You don’t have to be.”

“And I hoped I was succeeding.” John leaned back in his chair, rolled his left shoulder because it was starting to twinge. “Look, you’re right, okay. I do have questions. Lots of them. And I want to shake you until your teeth rattle for getting us locked in that – that lab, but can’t it wait till tomorrow? I’m dead tired, Sherlock, and you must be too.” If they left it till tomorrow, till he had more than just a catnap in the back of a taxi, till he got the reek of that lab and its dissected bonobos out of his nostrils, he could be a better person about it, he knew he could. But not now. He didn’t trust himself to be good now.  

“It can’t wait, I’m leaving tomorrow.”

“What, another case?”

“No.”              

And just like that, John found himself running up against a wall of stony Sherlock-Holmes-does-not-want-to-talk-about-it silence for the second time in two days. He changed his tack. “Why are you so keen on telling me about Irene? You don’t have to. It’s all right. I get it. History and all that. Everybody has it. I don’t gab about my ex-girlfriends.” He pressed his mouth into a tight, uncomfortable line. “Or Mary.”

“That doesn’t count, I knew about them.” Sherlock gave him a little smirk that said I could tell. “And this is different.”

“You’re right about that.” John sighed, put his hands on the table, resisting the urge to tinker with his spoon, his bowl, anything. “Fine. What have you got?”

“The first time was in Karachi, after we got away from her executioners, and it barely felt like it happened. We were exhausted, she was grateful and angry at herself for feeling grateful, and I – I thought I wanted it, wanted her at the time. Mumbai was better.”

Jesus. Trust the man not to have a filter. “Sherlock, I don’t need to hear this.”

“John, please.” Sherlock fixed him pleading eyes such as only he could manage, and John – well, it was never something he could resist. He waved at Sherlock to go on. “I sought her out while I was away. She had skills that I needed. I might have gotten them elsewhere, it was foolish of me, but I – I wasn’t in a position to resist the temptation of seeing a familiar face.” He wrinkled his nose to show what he thought of his having given in to such a base thing as sentiment. “I reasoned that she could do me no harm, not without exposing herself”—John snorted at his choice of words, and Sherlock gave him a look so arch you could have built bridges with it—“And that I hardly needed to threaten her with exposure if she betrayed me. Like I told you on Friday night, we met several times over two years.”

“Please, spare me the details.”

“It was easy, with her. Not like it is with you, you know I don’t mean that.”

“What do you mean, then?”

“She’s clever, John. Smart, so smart, talking to her is refreshingly like talking to an equal. I found her attractive in other ways as well, and I suppose I care for her, in a way, but that is where it ends. I didn’t tell you because I thought it wouldn’t matter, and telling even you of her continued existence would be a grave betrayal of her trust. I saw her again, when I was working for MI6, when you and Mary were supposed to be enjoying domestic bliss. We ended it then, it was clean, and the less said about her, the better.”

“So why now? Why bring this up now?” Though it was obvious, wasn’t it, what with Irene’s revelation, John didn’t know why he was asking, and he knew, he knew Sherlock was going to say something cutting (and, perhaps, affectionate) about how very obvious it was, and they would bicker about it for a few minutes more before turning in, and they’d go at it again tomorrow when, halfway through breakfast, it became clear that they were both trying too hard to pretend that everything was all right, and then, barring any interruptions, they would go on to have some life-affirming sex (or angry sex, depending on how high emotions were running), and things would settle gently back into 221B normal. That’s how it went. That’s how it was supposed to go.

And Sherlock, because he was so good at this sort of thing, because he had been turning the world on its head ever since the day they first met, went and did it again in just three words. “I’m taking Hamish.”

From his seat at the kitchen table, John Watson felt his universe shatter and spin into something strange and vast beyond all comprehension. He heard, as though from a great distance, Sherlock explaining that he’d arranged things with Irene, that he would be leaving tomorrow, and all the feelings that had been creeping in the background tore away from him and burst into the air, unbidden and terrible, like a minor clap of godly thunder.

“WHAT? No, Sherlock, wait - ”

“There’s very little choice.”

“Why can’t Irene keep the kid? She’s his mother.”

“She’s supposed to be dead, John.”

“So are you!”

Sherlock flinched, and John would have given his right foot to be able to take the words back. That was precisely why he’d wanted to wait until he was more capable of being a decent human being before they even touched the issue, but Sherlock went on before he could apologize, talking quickly and quietly, his long hands folded together on the table, unnaturally still as though he didn’t trust them to do their usual job of conducting half the conversation. “I made it so that I could come back,” he said. “I always meant to come back, even if I didn’t expect to be able to. She can’t. She’s done too much damage, ‘misbehaved’ too many times in too many ways, too many people would be after her if they learned she was alive. A child would be in danger with her and a danger to her, don’t you see?”

“And so you’re a prime candidate for fatherhood? How do you know it’s even yours?”

“She has no reason to lie.”

“No reason to l– for God’s sake, this is Irene Adler we’re talking about!”

“Yes.”

“It’s not like getting a puppy, you know. I mean, it’s terrible enough to give a puppy away when it’s grown up a bit and you decide you didn’t want it after all, and we’re talking about a kid, an actual kid, and there’ll be – there’ll be school and vaccinations and – and manners and things…”

“I know.”

“Jesus!” John wasn’t sure when he’d stood up. He hadn’t even been aware that he was angry until he kicked his chair, making it slam into the table so that the bowls jumped and the chemistry set rattled precariously. He was wrong to be angry, he knew it, it was stupid and irrational and he hated it, hated what he could be like in that state.

The worst part of it was how Sherlock blinked, licked his lips, and rearranged his hands on the table – small self-effacing gestures when heaven knew he hardly ever resorted to those. “If,” he began, then stopped. He swallowed before trying again. “If the idea bothers you that much, I have thought of alternatives. Six of them, though having him stay with my parents is the most feasible by far. You’ve met them. They’ll be happy that at least one of their sons managed to reproduce.”

“God.” John closed his eyes, pinched the bridge of his nose, took one deep breath then another. “Look, Sherlock, do what you have to do. It’s fine. Really. Don’t listen to me. I’m tired can cranky, and you seem to have thought this through, and you don’t need my permission to do anything about your kid.” Jesus, that sounded strange. “About Hamish.” That sounded even stranger. John shook his head. “It’s not like – I mean, we’re just…whatever it is we are.”

“You’re the most important person in the world to me. There is no ‘just’ about that. And the child is an unknown quantity. I’d rather have y—”

John stabbed a finger at Sherlock’s nose to keep him from finishing what would have been a horrible, horrible sentence. “Stop right there. I can’t always tell when you’re pulling one over me, but I can tell when you’re trying too hard to tell me what you think I want to hear. I’m not so crazy as to make you choose between me and your kid. Your son. It’s not really all right, but I suppose I should be thankful that you didn’t just show up with a baby in a basket, which you’d be perfectly within your rights to do, by the way. And I think I’ll be glad that you’re telling me at all once I’ve had time to think. It’s just really hard to wrap my head around it right now.”

Sherlock gave him a rueful lopsided grin. It made him look oddly helpless. “You have no idea.”

“I suppose I don’t.” They were too far apart with too many things between them for any grand, spontaneous reconciliatory gestures and John settled for leaning over the kitchen table and brushing his fingers over Sherlock’s knuckles. The tension went out of him at the touch, and John managed an answering smile as he tapped the side of his empty bowl. “You done with that?”

Sherlock pushed it towards him, somehow contriving to do so with a flourish, and that, John thought, showed that the man was feeling better already. He scooped up their supper things and took them to the sink (which, thanks to two days of rushing about on the Presbury case, was mercifully clear of hazardous or decomposing materials), thinking that would be the end of that.

Sherlock was not quite done, however. “John – I’m sorry.”       

“You don’t need to be sorry for anything, you idiot.” John glanced at him meaningfully over his shoulder. He knew his expression was a bit too tight for it to pass as an all’s-well-between-us, but it would do.

A brief, relieved look flitted across Sherlock’s face. “I’m going to bed. Coming?”

“In a bit.”

“I can do the dishes tomorrow.”

“Thanks for offering, but you’re leaving tomorrow, right? I’ll do them, it’s okay.”

“No, it’s not.” Quite suddenly, Sherlock was standing behind John with his arms around his middle, hands clasped just above his belt, knees and waist slightly bent so that he could rest his chin on John’s shoulder in an all-encompassing full-body hug.

John had the sense that he was seeking comfort as much as he was trying to be comforting, and he pushed back against the solid warmth behind him, and gave a short laugh when Sherlock startled at the touch of his wet sudsy hands on his own. “But it will be.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And it has taken me a monstrously long time to get back to this! I was working on this chapter precisely when my little computer died a sudden and unexpected death last year, and I almost cried with relief when the computer repair people managed to retrieve my files, this fic included (this fic foremost, actually). It took me a while to get back into the mindset for this, and I am sorry for that - there was, er, rather more drama than I planned, and I hope it's still all right.


	3. Monday's Child Has Learned to Tie His Bootlace

While he had the flat to himself, everything was so ordinary, so _normal_ that John was almost tempted to think that Sherlock having a child had been an exceptionally wild figment of his imagination. Then a week after Sherlock left - a full week, with only the one email telling John that the plane had landed and that he wasn’t to expect any more emails in the near future - packages began to arrive at Baker Street.

Mrs. Hudson intercepted most of them. She was so used to her lodger’s eccentricities that she didn’t bat an eyelash at the boxes of nappies and baby formula, and John, who wasn’t sure whether or not the news about Sherlock’s son was his to share, didn’t offer any explanations. She didn’t even comment on the serviceable, sturdy pushchair and the matching car seat. But when a cherry wood cot arrived one afternoon, she stuck to John like a limpet, and delicately demanded answers.

“And just where did Sherlock go?” she asked innocently as they watched the two delivery men maneuver the sections of wooden frame up the narrow stairs.

“Er, Germany,” said John. That was what it had said on his plane ticket, though the truth was that Sherlock could have gone anywhere from there. “He’s, ah, gone to - he’s expecting...” He trailed off, realizing what that sounded like, but Mrs. Hudson jumped to her own conclusions quickly enough.

“Oh, are you _adopting_?” she said, clasping her hands to her chest in a manner just short of beatific. John flinched. The delighted look in her eyes was frankly mortifying.

“No. Not as such. Um.”

“You’re using a surrogate, then? Well, I wish you’d told me sooner. But I suppose you wanted to keep it to yourselves till everything was settled.” She patted John’s arm affectionately. “It seems to have gone well, doesn’t it? Congratulations, dear.”

“Right. Um. Thanks.” And he fled, mumbling that he had to check where they were putting that cot.

* * *

There was a second email from Sherlock a few days after that, a terse one containing detailed instructions for setting up the cot in the downstairs bedroom; for making the kitchen fit for infant food preparation (John had already started on that, having made a habit of disinfecting things whenever there was an extended absence of Sherlock); and for childproofing the flat with the contents of a kit that was due in the mail. And, almost as an afterthought, there was a request for John to meet them at the airport on Monday afternoon.

_Them._

That was a jarring thought, and it left John feeling lost and wrong-footed. What made it even weirder, he thought as sat down to assemble the cot, was that he’d been through all this before. With Mary. And that had been nice - no, _wonderful_ \- at first, and exciting and vaguely terrifying, until everything, _everything_ to do with Mary had gone pear-shaped like the most horribly-shaped pear in history. (Though John had always thought that that analogy was rather unfair on pears. They were a pretty decent fruit - a bit lacking in the flavor department, though they did pull their weight in still-lifes and American breakfast muffins.) After that, he had, by degrees, gotten used to the idea that kids just weren’t going to figure in the future that he had with Sherlock, and that had been a bit of a wrench, but he was perfectly fine with it. Sherlock, as far as he could tell, had never considered children as anything beyond being small people who were occasionally more useful for cases than adults.

And now there was this. It was a bit like having to learn to tie his bootlaces all over again, and he wasn’t sure how he felt about that. Still, he did what Sherlock asked, because he didn’t think he was so heartless as to willfully refuse to look after an infant’s needs, spawn of Irene Adler though he might be. He even made a point of being early at the airport, so he was in time to see Sherlock striding out of the arrivals gate, pulling a small, wheeled suitcase and carrying a child who was somewhat larger than John expected.

“That wasn’t as tedious as I thought it would be - I ought to fly with a child more often,” said Sherlock, by way of greeting when they were finally face to face amidst the crush of people. “We were bumped up to business class, weren’t we, Hamish? Though we could have done without the cabin crew fussing. You’d think they’d never seen a kid before. Hold him, please.”

Before he could protest, John found himself with an armful of small, squirmy child while Sherlock tucked a pair of passports into the outside pocket of a capacious baby bag that was a good deal more posh than anything decorated with powder blue teddy bears had a right to be.

“He’s American?” asked John, spotting the dark blue cover of one booklet.

“For now maybe, but we’ll fix that. Uncle Mycroft owes him a birthday present.” Sherlock spared him a look as they made their way to the exit. “Pay attention to him, John. I’ll get us a cab.”

The baby - _Hamish_ , John reminded himself, thinking that Mycroft would do well to throw in a new name along with a change of citizenship - had closed one small hand on the collar of his jacket, and was looking up at him with extraordinary gray eyes and an even more extraordinary scrutiny. John nearly dropped him in surprise. To tell the truth, he’d been having some serious doubts about Hamish’s parentage, but those eyes and that look could only have come from one person. Everything came down to genetics, didn’t it?

“Hello,” he said uncertainly, wondering what to ought to come next. He didn’t have much experience talking to children, and he wanted to believe it was the shock that had his brain stuck, supplying him with all the wrong things. _I’ve seen your mum naked_ was hardly appropriate. _I’ve seen your dad naked too_ wasn’t much better. “I guess we’ll have to get used to each other.”

Hamish gurgled at him. John thought he sounded doubtful, and he didn’t blame him one bit.

 


End file.
